Taking the leadership role:Understanding leadership across team and organizational boundaries in view of the changing employment relationship

Contemporary knowledge workers cooperate more and more in multiple, temporary, and often virtual teams with peers within and across organizational boundaries. The growing involvement of multiple actors inside and outside organizations has severe implications for how the employment relationship is managed. In the current article it is argued that leadership is becoming not only increasingly distributed but also diffuse. Leadership is no longer "what those in leadership positions do," but refers to a process by which one or more actors stimulate themselves and each other in order to pursue values, goals, and objectives. Whoever takes on a leadership role, needs to understand the way actors can be motivated and energized to address future needs and requirements in organizations. Building on insights from human resource management, leadership, and organizational behavior literature, how multiple actors are stimulated to take on their leadership roles in order to foster salient outcomes for multiple parties is explored in the current article

Leading innovation in an interorganizational team together : the moderating role of shared leadership behavior in the transitioning between different phases of the open innovation process

Purpose – This study aims to contribute to the open innovation (OI) literature by investigating the transitions between three phases in the OI process (i.e. idea generation, idea promotion and idea realization) and how these are moderated by different forms of shared leadership (i.e. transactional, and transformational) as perceived by participants in the OI process. Design/methodology/approach – The authors tested a set of hypotheses using moderated mediation PLSSEM models on a bootstrapped sample of OI participants (N 5 173). Findings – The authors found a direct relationship between idea generation and realization, as well as indirectly through idea promotion. This study implies that the promotion of ideas by participants can be beneficial in inter-organizational OI teams, as promotion of ideas provides a linkage between the generation of ideas and the idea realization phase. However, while shared leadership has been shown to be beneficial in conventional teams, the authors found evidence that this may not be the case in inter-organizational OI teams. Higher levels of shared transformational leadership from colleagues with whom employees do not share the same organizational background may hamper the promotion of ideas. Originality/value – In contrast to the mainstream view, the authors found significant evidence that transformational shared leadership negatively moderates the direct relationship between idea generation and the promotion of ideas and the indirect relationship between idea generation and realization via idea promotion.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Am I fit for tomorrow's labor market? The effect of graduates' skills development during Higher Education for the 21st Century's labor market

This study contributes to the employability skills debate by investigating how students’ self-perceived 21st century skills relate to the self-perceived fit between their higher education curriculum and their future labor market for a sustainable entry to this labor market. Survey data from 4670 fourth-year students over a period of four years were analyzed. Furthermore, out of this group, 83 students were monitored longitudinally over their full educational student careers. Results showed a positive relationship between students’ self-perceived 21st century skills and their self-perceived “education-future labor market fit”. Among more recent cohorts, a significant improvement in their self-perceived 21st century skills was found. Overall, this study indicated that in order to deliver “employable” graduates, students need to be thoroughly trained in 21st century skills, and their development should be retained and expanded. This is one of the few studies that uses a vast amount of both cross-sectional and longitudinal data on skills and labor market perspectives among new graduates

A study protocol for a cluster randomised controlled trial on mindfulness-based stress reduction : studying effects of mindfulness-based stress reduction and an additional organisational health intervention on mental health and work-related perceptions of teachers in Dutch secondary vocational schools

Dutch teachers in secondary vocational schools suffer from stress and burnout complaints that can cause considerable problems at work. This paper presents a study design that can be used to evaluate the short-term and long-term effectiveness of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), a person-focused intervention, both within and outside of the context of an additional organisational health intervention. The proposed study comprises a cluster randomised controlled trial that will be conducted in at least three secondary vocational schools, to which teachers will be recruited from three types of courses: Care, Technology, and Economy. The allocation of the intervention programme to the participating schools will be randomised. The teachers from each school will be assigned to intervention group 1 (IG 1), intervention group 2 (IG 2), or the waiting list group (WG). IG 1 will receive MBSR training and IG 2 will receive MBSR training combined with an additional organisational health intervention. WG, that is the control group, will receive MBSR training one year later. The primary outcome variable of the proposed study is mindfulness, which will be measured using the Dutch version of the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ-NL). In the conceptual model, the effects of teachers' mindfulness resulting from the intervention programmes (MBSR training and MBSR training combined with an additional organisational health intervention) will be related to salient (secondary outcome) variables: mental health outcomes (e.g., burnout, work engagement), work performance, work-related perceptions (job demands and job resources), and personal competencies (e.g., occupational self-efficacy). Data will be collected before (T ) and immediately after the MBSR training (T ), and 3 (T ) and 9 months (T ) after the training. The power analysis revealed a required sample size of 66 teachers (22 in each group). The proposed study aims to provide insight into (1) the short-term and long-term effects of MBSR on teachers' mental health, (2) the possible enhancing effects of the additional organisational health intervention, and (3) the teachers' experiences with the interventions (working mechanisms, steps in the mindfulness change process). Strengths of this study design are the use of both positive and negative outcomes, the wide range of outcomes, both outcome and process measures, longitudinal data, mixed methods, and an integral approach. Although the proposed study protocol may not address all weaknesses of current studies (e.g., self-selection bias, self-reporting of data, the Hawthorne effect), it is innovative in many ways and can be expected to make important contributions to both the scientific and practical debate on how to beat work-related stress and occupational burnout, and on how to enhance work engagement and work performance. Dutch Trial Register (www.trialregister.nl): NL5581. Registered on 6 July 2016

The interrelatedness of organizational ambidexterity, dynamic capabilities and open innovation : a conceptual model towards a competitive advantage

Purpose – Establishing a competitive advantage in today’s dynamic environment involves optimizing an organization’s exploration and exploitation strategy. This paper aims to explore how an open innovation strategy complements the organization’s ambidextrous strategy in attaining a competitive advantage. Organizational ambidexterity and dynamic capability theories are also explored to investigate the impact of open innovation on the organization’s ambidextrous strategy and competitive advantage – especially inbound and outbound open innovation. Design/methodology/approach – The authors conducted a systematic literature review using Boolean search techniques, which was focused on the research fields of the sub-areas of general management, strategy, innovation, organization studies, information management, entrepreneurship, international business, marketing, and economics, supplemented by the snowball technique. Findings – Organizations that combine their ambidextrous strategy with open innovation attributes achieve a competitive advantage through developing their dynamic capabilities by which organizations change their value proposition. This study also shows that an ambidextrous strategy should no longer be viewed as a structural solution implemented by management, but also as a bottom-up intervention. Additionally, the authors found that the organization’s dynamic capabilities establish a feedback loop, which changes the organization’s ambidextrous strategy to resolve the efficiency–agility paradox. Originality/value – Previous research has focused on strategic orientation; however, hardly any research has investigated how the interrelatedness of open innovation, organizational ambidexterity and dynamic capabilities support a competitive advantage. The authors present a conceptual model that inspires new research avenuesinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Development and validation of the short-form employability five-factor instrument

Contains fulltext : 190313.pdf (publisher's version ) (Closed access

Employable through social media : an intervention study

This longitudinal, quantitative study contributes to the debate on technology-based professional development by examining the extent to which a learning (LinkedIn) intervention in a university setting affects an individual’s social media use for professional development, and the extent to which this relates to self-reported employability. In addition, we investigated how this relationship is moderated by an individual’s motivation to communicate through social media (LinkedIn). Based on social capital theory and the conservation of resources theory, we developed a set of hypotheses that were tested based on longitudinal data collected from university employees (N = 101) in middle- and high-level jobs. First, in line with our expectations, social media use for professional development was significantly higher after the learning intervention than before. Second, partially in line with our expectations, social media use for professional development was positively related with the employability dimension anticipation and optimization. Third, contrary to our expectations, motivation to communicate through social media (LinkedIn) did not have a moderating role in this relationship. We concluded that the learning intervention has the potential to foster social media use for professional development, and in turn, can contribute to individuals’ human capital in terms of their employability. Hence, the intervention that forms the core of this empirical research can be a sustainable and promising human resource management (HRM) practice that fits the human capital agenda